Renewable Energy for the Mountain State

Geothermal Energy: Research, Potential, Information

♦ West Virginia News

SMU Geothermal Mapping Project Reveals Large, Green Energy Source in Coal CountryShort news release,
Full news release 09/29/2010, Dallas, TX, Southern Methodist University News & CommunicationsNew research produced by Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org, suggests that the temperature of the Earth beneath the state of
West Virginia is significantly higher than previously estimated and capable of supporting commercial baseload geothermal energy production.

West Virginia Is a Geothermal Hot Spot10/4/2010, Eli Kintisch, Science NowResearchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists,
West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of earth, some as warm as 200°C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region.

West Virginia—Country Roads to Geothermal Power10/4/2010, The Official google.org BlogThe SMU Geothermal Laboratory, led by Principal Investigator Dr. David Blackwell, has discovered unexpectedly high temperatures beneath West Virginia capable of supporting geothermal energy production. As a result, they have
increased estimates of West Virginia's total heat content by 78% and geothermal generation potential by 75%.

WVU engineering professor receives $1.2 million for geothermal energy research11/18/2009, Morgantown, WV, West Virginia UniversityA team of researchers, led by West Virginia University’s Brian Anderson, has received $1.2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a three-year
research project aimed at expanding the use of the energy beneath our feet – geothermal energy,
that is, stored in the hot rocks beneath the surface of the earth.

♦ Maps

The first image is an index map of heat flow (mW/m2), well locations, springs, and structural features. The second image is a set of maps showing temperature-at-depth for West Virginia. Red points represents locations of actual drilled temperature, the triangle is the deepest well in the dataset.

♦ Data

State Geothermal Data A project organized by the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) that brings data from all 50 states into the
National Geothermal Data System (NGDS).

Open Energy Info A website/wiki sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in support of the Open Government Initiative to make energy data transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

♦ West Virginia Projects

The NGDS is a distributed network of databases from 46 states including West Virginia that are collectively building a system for acquisition,
management and maintenance of geothermal and related data. WVGES is involved in this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) project that is led by the Arizona State Geological Survey.